I guess I should have stated this in my original post. I don't necessarily object to the code changes (I'm not qualified to make that call, to be honest). If they are needed for the good of Linux, then I'm all for it, even if it does break expensive commercial programs.
It's the arrogant attitude that I have a problem with. Working on open source means working with a community. Sometimes that community includes commercial operations. Messing with them just because "you can" just doesn't seem like good diplomacy.
Last time I checked, linux was a homebrew project by Linus.
It's been a long time since you've checked, obviously. Linux has grown way beyond a homebrew project for Linus. It's a multibillion dollar business these days.
At first I was going to point out that you missed my point entirely, but then I realized you just reinforced my statement. Are you, by chance, a kernel hacker?
This may very well break some rather expensive commercial Linux products, but that doesn't seem to bother most kernel developers. Reminding the purveyors of binary modules that they continue to operate at the pleasure of the Linux kernel developers and their open-source licenses is seen to be a necessary (even enjoyable) task.
What an arrogant attitude. The kernel developers need to be reminded that widespread acceptance of Linux might very well require the support of big commercial enterprises, not just hobbiests and open source enthusiasts. Few companies are going to make major investments in Linux if they have to deal with prima donna programmers who love fucking with them.
This is one of my pet peeves. Computer books are too damn expensive, especially given the fact that most of those $40 or $50 books will be obsolete within six months (I'm being generous by saying six months).
Yes, it's a nitch market. Geek books will never have the market of someone like Stephen King. However, attempting to gouge me only means I buy a couple of computer books a year. Whenever I look at a computer book, I ask, "do I NEED this book", as opposed to just wanting it. Very few books can get by this rule.
And why the hell is a paperback geek book more expensive than a hardbound novel?
You guys all know what happens next; after a series of RTFM j00 dumb n00bie!!1 and Wow your dumb comments, 99.1% of these folks who were initially awe-inspired by Open Source turn severely sour on it and give up. They then reinstall Windows and go along their merry way.
I was a moderator in #linux until recently. I never tolerated insulting the beginners. I banned more than one "elitist" for arrogant behavior towards someone who was (to put it nicely) very lost.
BTW, I quit the channel a couple of weeks ago because of SOps arrogance. I was complaining that the topic was less than useful and very old. It referred to a solaris bug. My attitude was wtf does that have to do with Linux? Because they had the topic locked so that only SOps could change it, all I could do was repeat my complaint. When one of the SOps told me to stop complaining or he would kick me, my immediate response was, "works for me", and I quit. I haven't been back since.
And this time it would be very simple. Once the XML document standard has been settled, the US government needs to mandate that any wordprocessing software used by the government must use the XML open starndard, no exceptions. Give the industry one year from the adoption of the the standard to implement it in their software. After which, any document processing software which does not conform is automatically excluded from any consideration by the government. No one is forced to open up their proprietary systems. It's their choice. Choice is good, even for arrogant companies like Microsoft.
in europe, where social policies are much more advanced and education in general is higher
Europe is not more socially advanced, unless you consider hardcore socialism to be a more advanced system than capitalism. I don't consider it more advanced when the government attempts to control every aspect of your life. I don't consider it more advanced when the government spies on you every moment you are out in the public.
What evidence do you have to back up your statement that Europeans are more educated?
If I can carry a piece of plastic with me that will help stop thousands of terrorism related deaths a year I'm all for that.
So am I, but until they create a "terrorist detector" the size of a credit card this isn't possible. Shifting the blame to the common person isn't going to stop terrorism. The government had more than enough information to detain the 9/11 terrorists, but did nothing. Now they are using it as an excuse to piss all over the Constitution. I won't stand for that. This country IS the Constitution. Without it, we are no better than some piss-ant third world country run by a despot with a funny hat.
I block China, Korea, and Nigeria country wide. I also use the SBL from spamhaus.org, plus I've added some personal "favorites". This doesn't catch all the spam, however. So on top of that I run everything through SpamAssassin. Anything with a score of over 15 goes into a spam account (I check it occassionally to make sure there are no false positives). Anything with a score of at least 7 is marked as possible spam but still delivered. Spam rarely gets through, but the system isn't perfect and I doubt if it ever will be.
Right or wrong, you should always stick to standards. If you implement an entirely new GUI for your wizbang app, you can be sure people will hate it because it won't be intuitive - even if your GUI is a better system.
Microsoft may have made a lot of mistakes in designing their GUI, but it is now the standard. KDE offers a GUI configuration that closely emulates Windows because it reduces the fear factor for the newbie. Improvements need to be made in KDE to make it act even more like Windows. Not because Windows has a good GUI, but because people are comfortable with it.
Let's win people over by offering them a familiar desktop, better performance and no blue screens. GUI changes should be left to the elite.
Seems the major problem open source developers are having with the BitKeeper license is that it places a certain requirement on them, just like the GPL. The GPL community response to criticism has always been, "don't use GPL code if you don't like the license." Seems perfectly reasonable. If you don't like the BitKeeper license, then don't use BitKeeper. When you get down to the basics, it's the same damn issue.
The same goes for the second amendment. It states that only the government is allowed to keep and bear arms and may impose any restrictions, including bans, on the private ownership of arms.
Where does it say only the government to keep and bear arms? The exact wording of the 2nd Amendment is:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The "people" are you (assuming you are a US citizen) and me. Throughout the Constitution, the "people" is used consistently to mean the citizens. If this amendment did not mean the citizens, it would be the ONLY place in the Constitution that does not have the same meaning.
The "militia" is legally defined as all able bodied men and woman who are NOT part of the military, national guard, formal state militias, or police. In other words, just about everyone.
If we went by your slippery interpretation of the Constitution, only formal newspapers would have the right to free press. Fortunately, it is understood that free press applies to anyone and everyone.
What part of "shall not be infringed" did you not understand?
The exact wording in the Constitution (Article I, Section 8):
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Something left out of the arguments entirely is who these exclusive rights are intended for. It didn't say anything about a family, publishing company or factory. It said specifically the exclusive rights are for the authors and inventors. As stated by the Supreme Court on numerous occassions, the Constitution means what it says. Therefore, any extensions that go beyond the life of the author or inventor is clearly unconstitutional.
One problem is when a copyright is made in the name of a corporation which has a theoretically unlimited lifespan. If the Supreme Court ruled that the maximum length of a copyright is the lifespan of the author, then you would see a mad rush to copyright everything in the name of a business. This would have to be prevented as it is an attempt to bypass a Constitutional limit.
My personal solution is to automatically assign the lifespan of the current CEO of the business when the copyright is filed in the corporation's name - and changing the original name is not allowed. Most of them are old bastards who will die in 20 years from overwork or within 5 years during a prison gang rape (that was a joke - so laugh!).
Run sendmail with the mime-filter (included with the commercial version, Sendmail Switch). Reject email with any file attachments of the dangerous type: exe, bat, scr, vbs, pif. Additional suggestion, filter html email (evil!) through a filter to convert it to standard email or reject it outright.
No one modded me up. I post at 2 automatically. And no, I won't show RMS respect. He's a cartoony figure who has not earned my respect.
As for him initiating the free software movement. Bullshit. People were giving away software long before he was on the scene. We just didn't make it a big political issue.
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I guess I should have stated this in my original post. I don't necessarily object to the code changes (I'm not qualified to make that call, to be honest). If they are needed for the good of Linux, then I'm all for it, even if it does break expensive commercial programs.
It's the arrogant attitude that I have a problem with. Working on open source means working with a community. Sometimes that community includes commercial operations. Messing with them just because "you can" just doesn't seem like good diplomacy.
I'm not a troll. Nor am an an anonymous coward fuckwad. At least I have the balls to make a statement (right or wrong) with my name attached to it.
Oh, and in case you are too stupid to figure it out, this one IS a troll.
At first I was going to point out that you missed my point entirely, but then I realized you just reinforced my statement. Are you, by chance, a kernel hacker?
This is one of my pet peeves. Computer books are too damn expensive, especially given the fact that most of those $40 or $50 books will be obsolete within six months (I'm being generous by saying six months).
Yes, it's a nitch market. Geek books will never have the market of someone like Stephen King. However, attempting to gouge me only means I buy a couple of computer books a year. Whenever I look at a computer book, I ask, "do I NEED this book", as opposed to just wanting it. Very few books can get by this rule.
And why the hell is a paperback geek book more expensive than a hardbound novel?
I was a moderator in #linux until recently. I never tolerated insulting the beginners. I banned more than one "elitist" for arrogant behavior towards someone who was (to put it nicely) very lost.
BTW, I quit the channel a couple of weeks ago because of SOps arrogance. I was complaining that the topic was less than useful and very old. It referred to a solaris bug. My attitude was wtf does that have to do with Linux? Because they had the topic locked so that only SOps could change it, all I could do was repeat my complaint. When one of the SOps told me to stop complaining or he would kick me, my immediate response was, "works for me", and I quit. I haven't been back since.
The government doesn't need to generate, control, and enforce a new standard. They just need to adopt an existing standard.
The government requires companies conform to standards all the time. It doesn't require a bureaucracy.
And this time it would be very simple. Once the XML document standard has been settled, the US government needs to mandate that any wordprocessing software used by the government must use the XML open starndard, no exceptions. Give the industry one year from the adoption of the the standard to implement it in their software. After which, any document processing software which does not conform is automatically excluded from any consideration by the government. No one is forced to open up their proprietary systems. It's their choice. Choice is good, even for arrogant companies like Microsoft.
Europe is not more socially advanced, unless you consider hardcore socialism to be a more advanced system than capitalism. I don't consider it more advanced when the government attempts to control every aspect of your life. I don't consider it more advanced when the government spies on you every moment you are out in the public.
What evidence do you have to back up your statement that Europeans are more educated?
Oh, I get it! You're a troll!
I block China, Korea, and Nigeria country wide. I also use the SBL from spamhaus.org, plus I've added some personal "favorites". This doesn't catch all the spam, however. So on top of that I run everything through SpamAssassin. Anything with a score of over 15 goes into a spam account (I check it occassionally to make sure there are no false positives). Anything with a score of at least 7 is marked as possible spam but still delivered. Spam rarely gets through, but the system isn't perfect and I doubt if it ever will be.
Right or wrong, you should always stick to standards. If you implement an entirely new GUI for your wizbang app, you can be sure people will hate it because it won't be intuitive - even if your GUI is a better system.
Microsoft may have made a lot of mistakes in designing their GUI, but it is now the standard. KDE offers a GUI configuration that closely emulates Windows because it reduces the fear factor for the newbie. Improvements need to be made in KDE to make it act even more like Windows. Not because Windows has a good GUI, but because people are comfortable with it.
Let's win people over by offering them a familiar desktop, better performance and no blue screens. GUI changes should be left to the elite.
Seems the major problem open source developers are having with the BitKeeper license is that it places a certain requirement on them, just like the GPL. The GPL community response to criticism has always been, "don't use GPL code if you don't like the license." Seems perfectly reasonable. If you don't like the BitKeeper license, then don't use BitKeeper. When you get down to the basics, it's the same damn issue.
If they gave you the responsibility to do it, but not the authority to make it happen, then I'd say they purposely made you the fall guy.
Since security is an area that Microsoft has failed in every attempt they've made, how is this going to be different?
Yeah, it's a troll question, but it IS what I would ask.
The "militia" is legally defined as all able bodied men and woman who are NOT part of the military, national guard, formal state militias, or police. In other words, just about everyone.
If we went by your slippery interpretation of the Constitution, only formal newspapers would have the right to free press. Fortunately, it is understood that free press applies to anyone and everyone.
What part of "shall not be infringed" did you not understand?
EWWWW!!!!! I think I'm going to be sick, you bastard!
Just say you are studying to become a gynecologist.
One problem is when a copyright is made in the name of a corporation which has a theoretically unlimited lifespan. If the Supreme Court ruled that the maximum length of a copyright is the lifespan of the author, then you would see a mad rush to copyright everything in the name of a business. This would have to be prevented as it is an attempt to bypass a Constitutional limit.
My personal solution is to automatically assign the lifespan of the current CEO of the business when the copyright is filed in the corporation's name - and changing the original name is not allowed. Most of them are old bastards who will die in 20 years from overwork or within 5 years during a prison gang rape (that was a joke - so laugh!).
Run sendmail with the mime-filter (included with the commercial version, Sendmail Switch). Reject email with any file attachments of the dangerous type: exe, bat, scr, vbs, pif. Additional suggestion, filter html email (evil!) through a filter to convert it to standard email or reject it outright.
No one modded me up. I post at 2 automatically. And no, I won't show RMS respect. He's a cartoony figure who has not earned my respect.
As for him initiating the free software movement. Bullshit. People were giving away software long before he was on the scene. We just didn't make it a big political issue.